38 THE LONELY NIETZSCHE
by one book. This time I am quietly waiting until the waves, in which my poor friends are floundering, gradually subside, I! it is I who flung them into those waves—well, there's no danger to life, that I know from experience; and if here and there friendship is imperilled, well do a service to truth and Bay, * What we loved in one another till now was a cloud/ 1 could say a great deal, and think still more that must be left unsaid: I will just venture, by way of a joke, to compare myself to a man who gives a big dinner and sees all his guonts run away without tasting the fine dishes put before them. If one or two guests do take a few bites and enjoy them (as you do, my dear good fellow, in praising my Greeks), the h<mt feels highly honoured.
"Don't puMle your brains as to how such a book could have bean written, but go on extracting this and that mornd for yourself. Perhaps the day will come when you, with your fine constructive imagination, will see the whole as a wliolo, and share in the great happiness that has been mine. In tho meantime, you must look only for me in my book, and not for friend Bee* I am proud to have discovered his lofty qualitioH and aims, but he had no influence whatever on my'philosophy in a nutshell/ which was ready and for a good part committed to paper by the autumn of 1876, when 1 made bin acquaintance. We found ourselves on the same piano; our conversations were a source of great enjoyment and of much mutual profit, . . . I suppose this makes me seem still stranger to you, still more incomprehensible? If you only felt what I feel, now that I have set up my life's ideal—you would indeed rejoice in your friend. And the day will come.'1
Here arises the question, how we came to make Dr. Bde to some extent responsible for my brother'** new philosophy. The reason is a very natural one : wo found the new views unsympathetic .(new things am always uncomfortable). It comforted us to imagine that our beloved Fritz could not have hit upon fwch unpleasant ideas by himself, and thus we tacitly blunwd Dr. U4e. When a child has done something wrong, tho mother flies out like a lioness and scolds her neighbour's boy for leading hers astray. Poor Dr. Ufa